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The story of Mike Huckabee’s youngest is snowballing into a collision course faster than the “No Smoking” sign was extinguished on the Hindenburg. As we learn more and more details about the incident, the story has become so grotesque, that the attempts to cover it all up appears like a pair of headlights for a horrible embarrassment.

Once the camp had discovered what the boys had done, an anonymous was faxed to Animal Legal Defense Fund. (Kinky Friedman’s Utopia Rescue has the original Action Alert bulletin here.) The Director of the Anti-Cruelty division of the Animal Legal Defense Fund fired a letter of to the Chief Scout Executive, Jere Radcliff complaining about the boy’s behavior and pleaded for justice on behalf of the tortured and eventual murder of the animal. Pamela Frasch, an attorney wrote:

It has come to my attention that David Huckabee and Clayton Friday, two scout counselors, have admitted to the brutal killing of a stray dog at Camp Pioeneer on 7/11/98 and have been protected by the Caddo Area Council as well as Camp Pioneer authorities. The two boys allegedly hung a dog by his/her neck, throwing the body over a railing to a twenty foot drop. After realizing that this did not kill the dog, they slit his/her throat and stoned the dog to death. These disturbing events should have been reported immediately to the Polk County Sheriff’s Office, where a complete investigation of this horrific crime should have taken place. It is my understanding that the boys lost their jobs, which is hardly acceptable punishment for the committing of a violent crime. And it is especially unbelievable that this could happen at a Boys Scout Camp, where young men are supposed to be taught respect and kindness towards the natural world an all its inhabitants. That dog suffered an enormous amount of pain and suffering, and eventual death at the hands of these two youths. This unspeakable, and legal act can not be dismissed with a “boys will be boys’ adage or as anything less than the malicious crime tha ti so understandibly is.

The Isikoff/Bailey story notes that the Arkansas State Police headquarters was bombarded by animal rights groups everywhere demanding an immediate investigation. (Animal Cruelty at best, is a misdemeanor in Arkansas. In a state where marrying your sister will get you a gallon of moonshine and a pair of shoes, it’s no surprise.) The investigation was never launched by state police. However, the director of the state police told Newsweek that:

Governor Huckabee’s chief of staff and personal lawyer both leaned on him to write a letter officially denying the local prosecutor’s request. Bailey, a career officer who had been appointed chief by Huckabee’s Democratic predecessor, said he viewed the lawyer’s intervention as improper and terminated the conversation.

Huckabee and his chief of staff obviously disagree with this part of the story. Especially when:

Seven months later, he was called into Huckabee’s office and fired. “I’ve lost confidence in your ability to do your job,” Bailey says Huckabee told him. One reason Huckabee cited was “I couldn’t get you to help me with my son when I had that problem,” according to Bailey.

The FBI steps up to the plate in defense of Bailey:

“Without question, [Huckabee] was making a conscious attempt to keep the state police from investigating his son,” says I. C. Smith, the former FBI chief in Little Rock, who worked closely with Bailey and called him a “courageous” and “very solid” professional.

Huckabee thinks this is all bullshit by saying:

Huckabee called Bailey’s account “totally untrue” and described him as a “bitter” exemployee. “I asked him to resign because he had so alienated the entire state police,” he said. “It had nothing to do with my son.”

Yeah right. Baily was appointed by the Huckabee’s Democratic predecessor, so it’s because he was a Democrat that made him “bitter”?! But if the FBI is agreeing with the State Police director, Huckabee is the one with the credibility problem of the story. It gets worse for Huckabee’s account when his own staff jump into the story with:

Brenda Turner, Huckabee’s then chief of staff, and Kevin Crass, the Huckabee family lawyer, also disputed Bailey’s account, although both acknowledged talking to him about the dog killing. “I asked him, ‘Is it normal for the state police to … investigate something that happened at a Boy Scout camp?’ ” Turner says. “We wanted the same treatment that anybody else would get.”

And the treatment David Huckabee received?! He was later promoted to Eagle Scout! This story stinks to high heaven and makes a body just want to weep.

Dogs are pack animals. And they identify with their pack-mates solely for survivability. All dogs identify with their human counter-parts as being part of their own pack. This dog’s innocence in hoping to find a pack ended up in hanging, torture and eventual death. All so a Governor’s son could find a few minutes of “entertainment”.

Typical for the Republican Party, nothing is leveled against this boy’s horrific behavior and his high-profile Republican father dismisses it with:

…that his son did not engage in “intentional torture.” “There was a dog that apparently had mange and was absolutely, I guess, emaciated.”

Excellent excuse for a man who’s completely out of touch. If he’s out of touch with his son’s behavior and the brutality of his actions, then he’s out of touch with what’s going on in the world.

Fruit Fly’s Sticky Notes

If gay people were in charge of FEMA; all of those people in New Orleans would not only have bottled water, but they'd also have sun-screen and ponchos in three different colors!
-The Agenda with Joe Solmonese on XM Radio